FOOD TRUCK FACTS
The food truck industry has been growing for years into the viable market segment that it is today. Below are some general stats regarding the food truck industry:
1. The Food truck industry is now $2 billion-plus in estimated revenue in cities across the U.S. Compared to 2014, the industry’s overall revenue has grown 300% in the last three years. (Food truck nation)
2. Food truck growth is even outpacing overall commercial foodservice, such as restaurants, at a growth of 5.4 percent versus 4.3 percent. Many restaurants, however, are jumping on the mobile trend, establishing their own satellite food truck restaurants with limited, more casual or fun menu items. (Food truck operator)
3. Startup costs for creating your own restaurant on wheels from $133K - $300K (20 ‘ truck fully equipped) (Concession Nation)
4. Less than $100,000 (in addition to initial cost of truck) can kickstart a food truck that makes $250,000 to $500,000 per year. (Food truck operator)
5. Most likely consumers to purchase a meal from a food truck are aged 18 to 34, followed by 54 percent of diners aged between 35 and 44 years old. (Statistics portal)
6. Millennials are widely considered the “food truck generation” with 47 percent having eaten from a food truck at some point. Think young, hip urban eaters. (Big think)
7. Over 90 percent of diners rated food truck quality as excellent or good and over 80 percent of them used words like fun, exciting, new, different and unique when asked why they dined there. (Mobile cuisine)
8. Almost all diners interviewed planned to continue patronizing food trucks and loved the speed, convenience, quality and price of food service. (Mobile cuisine)
9. In Chicago, roughly 80 percent of local food trucks are minority-owned small businesses. Food-truck owners represent a wide variety of races, genders, ages and income levels, plus they enrich and even help create thriving local communities.—Food truck nation
10. In fact, in 2019, the size of the food truck industry in the U.S. alone was estimated to grow up to 20 percent to 985 million.—Forbes.
Although there will still be costs for food licenses, properly run, the income from a food truck will far outweigh the cost of getting started.
Operation Mess Hall Food Trucks will be veteran owned and operated which will make them appealing to a large portion of our population. Americans feel good about supporting veteran-owned businesses.
Quote from Eugenia Lebedynska, Restaurant Business Expert at McDonald Paper regarding food truck profits:
“The average food truck will gross $300,000 annually, and revenue has increased by 12% over the past 5 years. Employee costs can range from $10 - $30 an hour, but a lot of food trucks are paying employees $20 - $30/hour.
Let's assume that the truck makes $20,000 a month in sales.
Food costs are often between 25% and 38% of the total monthly sales, so you’ll be spending $5,000 - $7,600 in food alone. This leaves you at $12,400 - $15,000 in remaining cash. If you reduce all of the monthly fees, you’ll have profits in the range of $11,450 - $14,050 on the low end, or $10,600 - $13,200.